Earnings Reports Look Back, Forecasters Look Ahead

It’s earnings report season, and B2B payments and enterprise FinServ companies are unleashing the data behind their performance. New stats from American Express, Bottomline Technologies, SAP Ariba, Chrome River and others take a look back at the last three months. Other firms, meanwhile, are looking ahead at the future of the industry, with new predictions for cloud adoption and treasury management habits. PYMNTS gives you the rundown of all the numbers below.

1 Trillion: The value, in U.S. dollars, that source-to-pay solution SAP Ariba has driven in B2B sales in 2015, the company said. The statistic emerged from a slew of data SAP released in its quarterly earnings report, which actually slightly missed analyst estimates. Even with missed earnings, SAP says Ariba’s success demonstrates the migration among the world’s businesses to digital, holistic procure-to-pay solutions. An estimated 2 million corporate buyers and sellers tapped into SAP Ariba in 2015 as well, the firm added.

10 Billion: The value, in U.S. dollars, that Citi says it lent to U.S. small businesses in 2015 — a more than 120 percent increase from its small business lending volume reached in 2009. The latest data was released by the bank as a reflection on its small business lending efforts over the last few years. A statement released by Citi CEO Michael Corbat explained that, five years ago, the institution vowed to ramp up its small business lending efforts.

14.6 Million: The U.S. dollar value of Bottomline Technologies’ corporate earnings for the second quarter of FY2016, the company said in its latest earnings report. The B2B digital payments and invoicing firm only slightly missed analyst forecasts, and even so, the company said it was “delighted” in its performance, assuring investors that recent strategic investments will begin to play out positively in its financial performance moving forward. Bottomline also noted that it added 16 new financial institutions to its list of clients during the quarter, including its new partnership with Fifth Third Bank, as FIs begin to implement cloud-based, electronic payment solutions for corporate customers.

430: The number of enterprises across the globe using Chrome River’s expense management and supplier invoice processing software, the company stated as part of latest quarterly earnings report. The figure represents what the company called “record growth” in 2015, an 82 percent increase in the number of users compared to the year prior, with businesses in more than 90 countries now using its SaaS tools.

63: The percentage of corporate treasury officials surveyed by Capital One’s Treasury Management Group that reported owning a commercial card product and using that card to manage accounts payable processing. Researchers noted that the figure is up from 59 percent cited in previous surveys. The findings were part of Capital One’s broader survey of treasury management habits, a study that also found increases in the demand for digital and mobile cash management capabilities, fraud protection and a greater emphasis on problem solving when professionals choose a treasury management service provider.

40: The percentage of spend on the public cloud that will come straight from small and medium-sized enterprises by 2019, said IDC researchers. As the new decade approaches, IDC found that spend on public cloud services will increase six times faster than overall spend on IT. And while the majority of those funds will be funneling in from larger corporations — slated to spend $80 billion on the cloud by 2019 — SMEs will amount to up to 40 percent of that payment.

32: The percentage of U.K. SMEs concerned about their ability to enter new markets this year, according to a survey by Exemplas. That worry weighs equally as heavily as the concern about finding new funding among SMEs, according to researchers. The impact of changing government regulations — including implementing pension schemes — also topped the list of chief concerns for 2016.

1.42: The percentage by which corporate travel spending increased across Europe in 2015, analysis from American Express Global Business Travel revealed. That growth is more than double the forecasted business travel spending growth of 2014, researchers noted. Cost control is no longer the number one concern among enterprises when it comes to business travel. It’s good news for American Express and other card companies offering commercial card products in Europe; however, American Express recently released quarterly figures that missed expectations, a result blamed on declining U.S. corporate travel spend, the firm said.